Perth Voice Interactive

NORTHBRIDGE neighbours came together last weekend with international street artists to spruce up their laneway between Moir and Lake Streets.

The laneway has been hit hard by tagger vandals nearly every night: resident David McLoughlin noticed a wall with a mural never seemed to get tagged.

“I’ve been there four or five years, and there’s not been one tag on it,” he says. “There’s this etiquette that you don’t tag over someone else’s work.”

He got to chatting with seasoned artist Stormie Mills whom he’d commissioned to paint an interior wall in his house, and they came up with the idea to make good use of all the mural artists in town for Form’s Public Art in the City project.

Locals funded the day themselves, with paint donated by the Butcher shop and boxes of stubbies from Feral brewery. They invited neighbours on the quiet to try to keep things informal.

“I reckon over the day there would have been a couple of hundred at one stage it was quite thronging in there,” Mr McLoughlin told the Voice. “The cops turned up, had a look around, said ‘have a good party’ and left!”

About 12 works were done on the day, including Mills’ rendition of an old timer on the street named Tony.

The locals hope more people will walk through the lane now it’s been tarted up, making it less desirable for vandals.

Mr McLoughlin says there’s still room for more murals and the locals plan to offer up space to emerging artists.

by DAVID BELL